$1M in grants offered for marine restoration

Published online: May 14, 2010News

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The FishAmerica Foundation, through its partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Restoration Center, has $1 million available for marine and anadromous sportfish habitat restoration projects in the coastal United States, the Great Lakes region and the U.S. Caribbean territories.

These grants will be awarded to community-based, on-the-ground projects to restore marine, estuarine and riparian habitats including salt marshes, mangrove forests and freshwater habitats important to anadromous fish species such as salmon and striped bass that spawn in freshwater and migrate to the sea

Projects in the Great Lakes must restore habitat for diadromous sportfish such as lake sturgeon, walleye and brook trout in the Great Lakes and applicable tributaries.

The FishAmerica Foundation will accept grant proposals through June 7. Grants of up to $75,000 each will be awarded in October.

For those applicants affected by the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill, FishAmerica will accept proposals through June 21.

WhileFishAmericaand NOAA recognize the need to maintain flexibility in the way projects impacted by the April oil spill are carried out, funding cannot be provided through this proposal process for direct oil spill mitigation or cleanup.

"We understand that many organizations along the Gulf Coast who would normally be preparing their applications at this time instead have to prepare for the potential impacts of the oil spill," FishAmerica Foundation executive director Johanna Laderman said in a statement. "We want ensure they have the opportunity to do both."